The Wiretapping Scandal in Brazil

Some pretty ugly news came out of Brazil yesterday. Apparently, high-ranking officials of Brazil's intelligence service have been tapping the phones of high-level politicians, including Lula's chief of staff, the president of the Senate, and the head of the Supreme Court.

Although Boz and Greg both beat me to it, there are a couple things I still want to highlight here. Although the opposition is immediately attacking Lula as abusing his powers and deserving of impeachment (even if he was unaware of the tapping), I find it extremely difficult to believe Lula knew of the tapping. Wiretapping is relatively easy as it is in Brazil from a strictly legal standpoint. What is more, wiretapping and spying have a rich history in Brazil's military and intelligence units dating back to the extensive use of wiretapping during the military dictatorship and even beforehand. The culture of spying within the military was never really dealt with after the dictatorship's end in 1985, and I have little doubt that that culture still exists today; no government in Brazil has tackled the military's continued impunity on this issue, leaving the military and intelligence organizations little incentive to stop unsolicited wiretapping or tapping for political purposes. As for the demand that Lula be impeached even if he was unaware of the tapping (and again, I really, really doubt he would be so dumb as to order these kinds of things), that is nothing but pure political posturing on the opposition's part.

It's important that Lula moved quickly to "suspend" those involved, and if there's anything he's proven, it's that people who abuse their power during his administration, be they friend or foe, will not be tolerated. However, his quick response, while good, is not enough; he really needs to use his position, combined with his popular support, to crack down on these practices. It's really time that a president in Brazil put an end to the last vestiges of the military dictatorship within the intelligence community. The 1988 constitution reduced and redefined the military's role in the Brazilian state; it's time that the intelligence community also see some heavy-duty reforms that make their operations less opaque and things like spying more difficult.